Painted welded steel, 2000.
“Idiot box” is the slang name for the television, and the sculpture is built on the plan of a set with an antenna: a heavy body, a pair of uprights standing on top of it, and a cord. The body is a stack of layered horizontal slabs with a drum fitted at its right end. A tall flat blade rises on the left with a wire curling from its tip. On the right a dark column carries a rimmed disc at the top, with two small rings around its shaft. A looped wire at the right end of the body and a thin cord hanging from it past the edge of the plinth read as the set’s power lead.
The slang is an insult, and it’s aimed at the viewer: the television is the box that turns whoever watches it into an idiot. In this sculpture all the weight sits in the box and the receiving is done by two thin uprights standing on top of it, the arrangement of a set with rabbit ears. The set is shown as a heavy body with a pair of ears.
